Our Approach

This will be a new kind of pilgrimage, one that focuses on the community of the Holy Land, on people becoming partners for peace with us. We must not let the Holy Land become just a museum of holy stones

Bishop Riah Abu el Assal

Pilgrims in the past were hosted by local Christians, often in monasteries, but except for a minority, this experience has largely been lost.

Many modern-day pilgrims move from coach to hotel to place of interest, rarely meeting their fellow Christians in the Holy Land. The new hosts are hotel managers, drivers and guides. Frequent and inexpensive flights have boosted the number of pilgrims travelling but along the way something has been lost. The great churches and holy places are presented simply as items in an itinerary – not places where the work of Jesus and His church continues today. This is the area McCabe is trying to address.

Just a few minutes’ drive from Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity we find the Al-Shurooq School for the Blind, founded by Helen Shehadeh, a Palestinian Christian. Helen writes: “We get some visits from pilgrim groups but I’d love more to come so that they could see what we are trying to do here.”

The church in the Holy Land now numbers less than 2% of the local population. We believe that visiting projects run by local Christians is a vital way of maintaining a personal and practical link with our fellow Christians in the Holy Land.

On a McCabe pilgrimage, your itinerary will include not just the places where Jesus taught and healed during His earthly ministry but also the places where a new generation of followers teach and heal today.

The McCabe Educational Trust is an integral part of our work and a vehicle through which we and pilgrims travelling with us channel regular support to orphanages, schools, clinics and church communities we encounter on pilgrimage.

Our aim at McCabe is to facilitate a pilgrimage experience through which participants return home changed and challenged.

On a McCabe pilgrimage, you will experience our philosophy first hand and we hope this will lead you to a lasting involvement with the people and places of the Holy Land.

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